With the substantial increase in processing power for personal computers realized in the recent past, it has become possible for such computers to generate and display very complex graphical images, including video images. However, due to various processor and memory limitations, the display of the video image at the computer is typically restricted to a small portion of the available display area--e.g., an area of 320.times.240 pixels. It would often be desirable from a user's perspective to be able to view the received video image at a larger size. While a limited re-sizing capability is known in the present art, it does not provide a smooth transition from one size to another, and does not permit a concurrent panning and re-sizing of the image.